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Businesses of all sizes can benefit by automating all aspects of their sales processes with an SFA (Sales Force Automation) solution. But due to the sheer number of features that most SFA solutions...Read More

If you're wondering which CMS is the right one for your organization, this comprehensive guide will take you through the various options available, detailing the pros and cons of each. Download...Read More

Considering a new phone system for your business? The Phone System Buyer's Guide from VoIP-News provides you with all of the information you need to make a more informed decision. The Guide helps you...Read More

APIs in the Arab Web

Technology blogger Mohamed Marwen Meddah wrote an interesting post on his StartUpArabia site: “The Importance of Having An API for Arab Startups”. Mohamed notes that, thus far, relatively few Arab online startups have opened up their platforms through APIs. However, he believes that providing an API is crucial for Arab online services:

Arab startups don’t have as much access to funding as their US or international counterparts, meaning that they have less flexibility and ability to grow their service into a central point that can be everything for everyone…

The limited funding for Arab startups makes it more critical that the startups provide an interface so that other services can:

plug in and communicate with it, in a way that we end up with a group of online applications that compliment each other and work together successfully.

One of the greatest challenges for Arab online services is language. Mohamed points to Yamli, which lets you search the Arabic web using English letters and keyboards, as an example of a web service that is providing added value for users, especially other Arab web sites. Yamli has recently opened up their linguistic service through the creation of their API (see our Yamli API profile for technical details).

With the Yamli API, any web site can enable users to fill out web forms using Latin characters, and the Yamli API will immediately translate the phonetic sound into Arabic characters. The form, then, is submitted in Arabic, even though the user typed the words as they sound in English (or French) using the Latin alphabet.

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